Reem Djebli

Reem Djebli/ Wise Afghanistan/ San Francisco, USA

As I eagerly await the remainder of the responses from the surveys so that I may begin analyzing the replies, I feel a renewed sense of confidence that the issue of women’s access to education in Afghanistan will one day be non-existent. It comes as no surprise to me that women across the nation have brilliant ideas on how to bridge the gap between men and women, and moreover improve the literacy rating for the country overall. If given the opportunity to (safely) voice their visions for how to create an equitable education system, they would gladly do it. These are just the initial sentiments I have based on the research I have been conducting. Once I have synthesized my findings into a proper policy proposal, I hope that it will demonstrate the brilliance and creativity of the women I have had the privilege of speaking to and reading about. 

Many of these women feel that the outside world is missing the bigger picture when it comes to women’s education. To them, they have historically seen the issue being tossed around as a political tool for the benefit of several parties, the P.D.P.A. (People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan), the U.S.S.R., the U.S. government, the Taliban, etc. To them, they see the way forward is not to abandon their religion, culture, families, or country, but to embrace the feminist spirit of organizing for education that they want on their terms, as they’ve been doing for decades. What’s notable about many of the Afghan women I came across in my research is that they have a deep sense of connection to other Afghan women across ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds. Even those who have had the access to education since they were children, express the notion that they want their sisters who have been systematically disenfranchised from educational opportunities due to their economic status to have the same opportunities they have had. They see their fight for women’s education as inseparable from the vision of a liberated and strong Afghanistan. 

The spirit of Afghan women’s organizing around access to education is powerful and inspirational. To ensure a bright, equitable, radical educational model to come for Afghan women we must continuously uplift and center their voices in any discussions regarding their future.  I would like to leave off with a powerful quote from Sima Samar to reflect on, the former Minister of Women’s Affairs in Afghanistan and a lifelong human rights advocate. In her article “Feminism, Peace, and Afghanistan” she states “I have been threatened by militia forces and told to close down my operations of educating Afghan girls. I always met such demands with the truth: that my crime would be giving girls pencils and paper, a crime I was willing to be hung in public for.” 

Reem Djebli/ Wise Afghanistan/ San Francisco, USA 

After having completed the first phase of my summer project with WISE-conducting source-based research- I discovered that the process was sometimes as telling as the research itself. When undertaking research, I found it very difficult at times to find sources that weren’t inherently biased. Whether it be the subtle undertones of Islamophobia that were embedded in otherwise informative and useful articles or the Western-centric solutions to a complex, decades-long Afghan problem. Filtering through available sources that were either credible or actually came from Afghan women themselves was not a light task. Learning how to make judgment calls on what information to take at face value and what to disregard was a skill that took time to polish. I found that this process led to a deeper discussion of how Muslim women are viewed, treated, and valued in public space with the head of WISE, Ms. Alia Rasoully. 

The contents of my research shed light on what I intuited to be true, the issue of women’s education in Afghanistan is too complex to be synthesized from one point of view. Women across racial, socio-economic, and geographic backgrounds have been on either side of the issue based on their experiences with imperialism, militarism, and orientalism. This issue, so commonly reduced to religious extremism versus humanitarian justice, is too an amalgamation of the results of the Cold War, British colonialism, U.S. militarism, classism, and racial tensions. Many trace the origins of the issue to the Taliban’s fight for control of the country beginning in the 1990s, but it doesn’t take much research into the history of the nation to discover the topic of women’s education predates our expectations. To understand how women feel about their right to education, we must de-center our notions of “rights” and “secularism” and what a classroom environment should look like. What of the women who desire to learn about their religion or who want to learn to carry on the traditions of homemaking passed down in their families? Should their definitions of just education be disregarded simply because it doesn’t fit into our image of what education should look like? 

To gain a better understanding of what Afghan women see as their right to education, I will turn to them, and let their voices speak for themselves. The next phase of my project will be creating and distributing interview questions and surveys to a selected group within WISE’s communities in Afghanistan, to allow them to share their visions of an Afghan-centric educational system. I will design these surveys keeping in mind the regional context these women are living in and will rely on what I’ve learned through the research phase to avoid replicating the same problematic patterns in my work.

Reem Djebli

Wise Afghanistan 

San Francisco, USA

   My first week working with WISE Afghanistan taught me that above all else, the security and privacy of the individuals we work with is of the utmost importance. In all of the paperwork I signed, in all of the briefings and conversations, it was made very clear that the safety of these individuals comes first. As such, I can share limited information on specific details of the additional work I am completing in my capacity as an intern that is outside the scope of my research project.  

        In beginning my research, I decided that in order to get a holistic view of the history of religious feminist organizing, I needed to examine the history of the practice in the neighboring regions to Afghanistan as well. I decided to include countries that had experienced historical events that are oft referenced in contemporary debates on the role of religion in a feminist quest for education, and specifically how veiling plays into said conversations. The research portion of my project is split into sections; socio-political, cultural, and theological imaginings of religious-feminist organizing. The choice to explore this across time periods and borders addresses how outside socio-political factors determine how it is accepted or rejected in society (I.e. The U.S.’ launching of the War on Terror, the Iranian Revolution, the rise of NGOs, etc). The choice to explore the cultural background is so to point to how often local culture and religion become so conflated it is hard to separate which societal rules stem from which. Finally, the choice to explore the theological component comes from the desire to gain a deeper understanding of the way religious texts/stories have been interpreted in the long history of Islam in a fashion that supports feminist organizing.

           As I delve into these histories, I intend to continuously make sure that Afghan women’s voices are centered, especially when it comes to the contemporary conversations on how to alleviate the issue of women’s education in the country. I will consistently be relying on the input of Ms. Rasoully and the other Afghan employees, and ensuring my sources are credible. My goal is to have completed the next month of research with enough vigor and thoroughness that I have an informed background on the subject prior to conducting my interviews.

 

Reem Djebli/ Wise Afghanistan/ San Francisco, USA 

 

WISE Afghanistan is a non-profit organization based in Kabul, Afghanistan that works to empower marginalized women in the country by providing them the tools they need to live healthy, successful lives. WISE’s pillars include healthcare advancement, youth empowerment, education, and human rights advocacy. It operates with the value of community building and empowerment at its core. Since its founding in 2013, it has provided over 7,000 women with health and educational resources throughout Afghanistan. In addition to providing these resources, WISE has also established a center that educates women and girls in Kandahar, Afghanistan – a region where over two-thirds of girls are not enrolled in school today. 

 

Alia Rasoully, a first-generation Afghan-American woman founded WISE in August of 2013, when she was still an undergraduate student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Ms. Rasoully created the organization intending to create deep connections between the passionate minds at WISE and the women in the communities they were going to work with. As head of the organization, she does her best to ensure that all employees and volunteers at WISE are doing work that is aligned with the visions of liberation that the women and girls in these communities hold. Given the often charged and Islamophobic discourse surrounding women’s education in the region occupying the media, Ms. Rasoully’s endeavors in education are crafted with the regional cultural and religious context of where they are to be implemented in mind. 

 

It is due to that very sentiment that I have chosen to do my summer internship with WISE. In my discussions with Ms. Rasoully, she made it clear that the work I will be doing in the coming months is in line with the principles of the communities I will be working with. It is, unfortunately, a rare find in the non-profit sector to find an organization that centers the viewpoints of Afghan women in the fight for education, so this opportunity is one I cherish greatly.  This summer, I will be conducting a research project into the ways that religious and cultural texts and practices have been incorporated into feminist organizing for education in Southwest Asia. After this initial research has been gathered, I will begin a series of interviews with the women and girls WISE is connected to within Afghanistan, to gain insight into what they view as a liberated education model. This work will culminate into a policy proposal for officials in Kabul to view. The ultimate goal of my work is to elevate the voices of these women so that their dreams of Afghan-centric, empowering education are centered in conversations about how best to create such educational environments.